The player of the game once again was Admiral Schofield, whom Wes Rucker called the Magnolia State Manimal. That’s appropriate, as Schofield flexed his entire skill set last night, including his muscle:

But State coach Ben Howland credits not just Schofield but also Grant Williams and says Tennessee is hard to beat partly because “they have those two bulls.”

And the rest of the guys are really beginning to come into their own as well, including Yves Pons. By the way, can you imagine having to do an interview with media while you’re still learning the language? Here, this will help you imagine that. (That’s a video of Pons’ post-game interview, which I would have embedded but for the auto-play feature I couldn’t turn off. But be sure to watch it.)

After that, this happened:

We joked with Lamonte Turner that his interview would be conducted in French after Yves Pons had to interview in English.